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12
MOVING PICTURE AGE
February, 1921
The Place of Motion Pictures in Education
Newark has 15 school auditoriums with professional projectors and in addition several portable projectors for class room work. As director of visual instruction Mr. Balcom is well fitted to discuss this problem
By A. G. Balcom
Ass't Superintendent of Schools, Newark, New Jersey
EDUCATORS who are using films as a means of instruction and those who are thinking of doing so, I fancy, are asking themselves and others these questions :
1. To what extent will the film supplant presentday methods of teaching?
My answer to this question and those which follow are simply my views based on two years' experience in trying to link up the film to the school program. First of all I want to say that no one, however keen his prophetic vision may be, can tell to just what extent the film will supplant present-day methods of teaching. That it will become an important factor as a means of instruction I do not question.
The fundamental principles of human activity are permanent and lasting, but the ways and means of bringing these things to pass are constantly changing. For instance, in the matter of transportation, the fundamental principle "To convey from one place to another" is the same now as a thousand years ago, but there has been a great evolution in the methods employed. I will not enumerate the steps of this evolution, but as recent as 15 years ago few people realized the great
The Six Questions Answered on Instructional Uses of Film
1. To what extent will the film supplant presentday methods of teaching?
2. Will the use of the film enable children to get an education with comparatively little effort?
3. Are we likely to go to the extremes in the use of film in attempting to teach some things that can be more effectively and economically taught in other ways?
4. As a whole, have educators been ultra conservative toward the film?
5. In supplying films for educational use will there be a tendency to make them too pedantic?
6. In short, will the film prove to be a panacea for many of the educational ills?
the extent to which it will supplant present-day methods no one can tell.
2. Will the use of the film enable children to get an education with comparatively little effort?
My direct answer to this would be an emphatic "No." A wise use of the film may make the path more attractive and give a joyous zeal in surmounting the difficulties but the fact remains that the work involved must be done by the individual who is in the process of getting an education. We make our bodies and minds stronger by exercising them. The men and women who have attained success in their chosen fields have done so by hard work. The good teacher is the one who inspires the pupils to do their work, guiding them here and suggesting there. If the film is rightly used and the proper reaction be developed after its showing; or showings, it will lead to greater activity on the part of the pupils
through a greater interest
Are we likely to go
possibilities of the gasoline engine. It now propels the pleasure car, the jitney bus, the light delivery truck, the heavily loaded truck, and the aeroplane that flies over land and sea. And the end is not yet.
There has been a great change in methods of doing business as applied to any great industry of the country during the last 25 years. I was born and brought up on a farm and have a vivid recollection of what farming was 30 years ago. This summer I visited my brother who has a large farm in central New York. I noted the labor saving devices of a hay fork in the barn and a loader for the field, and by the use of these one man with a team of horses can do as much as three men and a team of horses used to do. I saw in a magazine article recently that the Census Bureau at Washington would be able, through the use of improved devices for handling figures, to handle the 1920 census data in oneseventh of the time taken for the 1910 census. Recently a wireless despatch circled the globe and a few days ago I noticed in the morning paper where the human voice and parts of a phonograph record had been heard in a radio phone message from Jersey to Scotland.
The fundamental principles of teaching are the sametoday as they were in the time of Pestalozzi, but there have been changes in subject matter and methods since that time. Let me repeat that the film will find an important place in the teaching methods of the future, but
in the subject
3. to the extremes in the use of the film in attempting to teach some things that can be more effectively and economically taught in other ways?
I fear that this will occur. Only a few days ago I talked with a principal who is most enthusiastic regarding the possibilities of the film as a means of instruction. He thought the time would come when the film would be used extensively in teaching all subjects and illustrated how he thought it might help in teaching the mechanics of arithmetic. Those processes of education requiring repetition and drill can only be learned by doing them many times. Therefore I cannot see how the film would render very much aid along this line. I know of no teacher who has as yet exhausted all of the resources of visual aids, as the map, chart, graph, exhibit, picture stereograph, and slide. There are numberless things that may be better taught through the use of one or a combination of the above aids than the film, in my judgment, and certainly more economically.
4. As a whole, have educators been ultra conservative toward the film ?
I think this is true. We have had too much the attitude of "the man from Missouri — you'll have to show me." While the teachers and preachers have been waiting "to be shown" the commercial interests of the country have monopolized the film for entertainment purposes only. The industry has grown by leaps and bounds until it has reached the position of third among the great industries of the country. The film has become the popular medium of entertainment.
The non-theatrical demand for films, until recently, (Turn to page 18)